Makkah Clock Royal Tower - A Fairmont Hotel

This guide to the Makkah Clock Royal Tower in Mecca starts with a bulldozer arriving on this hill in 2002 and, within days, erasing an Ottoman fortress that had stood watch here for more than two centuries. The demolition set off an international row, with Turkey and heritage critics calling it an erasure of Islamic history and Saudi officials defending the decision as necessary for the pilgrims the site would one day serve. The guide follows what rose here instead, including a build so unusual that some of its foreign specialists converted to Islam just to work on it.